When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived
alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had
built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts,
and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two
years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life
again....
[Footnote 30: From Chapter I of "Walden, or Life in the Woods."]
Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an ax and went down to the
woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house,
and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their
youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but
perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow men
to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the ax, as he
released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I
returned it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside
where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on
the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and
hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet
dissolved, tho there were some open spaces, and it was all dark
colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of
snow during the days that I worked there; but for the most part when I
came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap
stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in
the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already
come to commence another year with us....
I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two
sides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving the
rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much
stronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned
by its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in
the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of
bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapt, at
noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to
my bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were
covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the
friend than the foe of the pine-tree, tho I had cut down some of them,
having become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the
wood was attracted by the sound of my ax, and we chatted pleasantly
over the chips which I had made....
I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where a
woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumac and
blackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square
by seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any
winter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun
having never shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but
two hours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of
ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an
equable temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is
still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old,
and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity will
remark its dent in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch
at the entrance of a burrow.
At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my
acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for
neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my
house. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers
than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of
loftier structures one day. I began to occupy my house on the 4th of
July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed, for the boards were
carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it was perfectly
impervious to rain; but before boarding I laid the foundation of a
chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up the hill from
the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall,
before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the
meanwhile out-of-doors, on the ground, early in the morning; which
mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable
than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixt
a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and
passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands
were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper
which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much
entertainment, in fact, answered the same purpose as the Iliad.
Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house,
which were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy
shingles made of the first slice of the log, which edges I was obliged
to straighten with a plane.
I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by
fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a
large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a
brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual
price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of
which was done by myself, was as follows; and I give the details
because very few are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and
fewer still, if any, the separate cost of the various materials which
compose them:
Boards $ 8.03-1/2
Refuse shingles for roof and sides 4.00
Laths 1.25
Two second-hand windows with glass 2.43
One thousand old brick 4.00
Two casks of lime (That was high) 2.40
Hair (More than I needed) 0.31
Mantle-tree iron 0.15
Nails 3.90
Hinges and screws 0.14
Latch 0.10
Chalk 0.01
Transportation (I carried a good part
on my back) 1.40
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In all $28.12-1/2
These are all the materials excepting the timber, stones, and sand,
which I claimed by squatter's right. I have also a small woodshed
adjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left after building the
house.